The Torah parshah for this week (to be read on 15 September) is Vayelech (Devarim/Deut. 31:1 – 30). September 15th is also Shabbat Shuvah (return), the Shabbat that falls between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It is the time of… Read More ›
Patriarchy
Medieval Torture Devices and the Goddess by Colette Numajiri
There is a campy dinner and tournament “castle,” Medieval Times, in our city in which you can eat and watch a fully- costumed period play complete with stunning Spanish horses in an indoor arena. Inside of this building, for a… Read More ›
Lessons from Shofetim by Ivy Helman.
This is the first part of a series of reflections on the weekly Torah portions. For those of you unfamiliar with Judaism, we read the Torah in sections. There are 52 parshot (or portions), one parshah (portion) is read each… Read More ›
I Was Brainwashed to Believe I Wasn’t Human. Now I’m on a Mission Against that Cult – Part 1 by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir
Trigger warning: child sexual abuse, domestic abuse I was so thoroughly brainwashed that my voice changed without me realizing it. My appearance changed so much that close family members did not recognize me. Multiple therapists told me that I had… Read More ›
On Chronic Illness and Justice by Ivy Helman
For almost four years, I’ve been living with the long-term effects of an inner ear lesion. The lesion is long gone but its side effects are not. Throughout the day, I feel a combination of unsteadiness and sudden, unpredictable sensations… Read More ›
Witches in the Weeds by Sara Wright
In folklore Old women are believed to control all aspects of Nature – Fire, Earth, Air and Water, but in myth and story they have a special relationship with water. The title “witches in the weeds” emerged after I did… Read More ›
On Belief and Action by Ivy Helman
My birthday was last Wednesday. Perhaps more than any other time of the year (yes, even more than Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur), the days and weeks leading up to my birthday are filled with personal reflection. Not that religious… Read More ›
On the ‘Naturalness’ of Inequality by Ivy Helman
In some regards, life on Earth seems to depend on some basic inequalities. For example, differences in size, height, strength, speed and endurance advantages some and disadvantages others. Depending on another for survival is another type of inequality. Being able… Read More ›
Is God Breathing? by Karen Leslie Hernandez
Another mass shooting. Syria. #MeToo. Hunger. Animal extinction. Iraq. Climate change. Deportation. Slavery. Central African Republic. Hate crimes. Rape. Animal cruelty. Oppression. Accidental nuclear war alerts. Homeless encampments. “Illegal immigrants.” Afghanistan. More mass shootings. Sex robots. Trafficking. Russian bots. Racism…. Read More ›
On Snakes by Ivy Helman
In the ancient world, snakes represented fertility, creativity, rebirth, wisdom and, even, death. They were often closely connected to female goddesses, priestesses and powerful human females who were the embodiment of such powers. For example, there is the Minoan goddess/priestess… Read More ›
Elie Wiesel Never Grabbed My Ass by Karen Leslie Hernandez
The #metoo campaign is empowering. I am enthralled (albeit sorrowful at the suffering), with the fact that thousands of women are bringing attention to the normalcy of sexual harassment and sexual assault. Yet, two months ago, my elation was squashed…. Read More ›
Difficult Dialogues by John Erickson
Let’s have a conversation about men and feminism and how we can continue to abolish the patriarchy together rather than writing mean, hurtful comments online.
What Happened When I Dared to Wear a Kippah by Ivy Helman
Last week Sunday, my partner and I were in Budapest, Hungary. We stopped at the Dohany Street Synagogue, the second largest synagogue in the world and the largest in Europe. After we bought our tickets and proceeded through security, we… Read More ›
“When You Know for Yourselves” by Oxana Poberejnaia
A female friend recently posted an article by a woman writer about motherhood. The article was entitled “Children are NOT life’s flowers” (referring to a famous Russian saying which means that children are what makes life beautiful). A number of… Read More ›
Bans are Bandages not Solutions by Ivy Helman
I’m heartbroken by yet another shooting in the United States. I want to believe that all humans are, deep-down, intrinsically good. I want to trust humans to act in the best interests of others. I want peace between and inside… Read More ›
Missing a Teachable Moment: The Purple Dress by Marilyn R. Freedman
Intelligent and impish eyes took in my approach, and the little girl moved away from the post office doors. But not before I saw her sweet face with round cheeks still full of baby fat squished against the glass. With slightly messy, curly… Read More ›
Tall Order by Sarah Kiefer
I saw an interesting headline the other day entitled: “Olympic Gymnast Hits Back at Body-Shaming.” I immediately thought, “Wow not again.” The fact that body-shaming is even an expression is a disheartening commentary on the society we live in today…. Read More ›
Reflections on Marriage by Ivy Helman
My partner and I are getting married in a little over a month. She, a lawyer, and I, a professor, live in the Czech Republic. Technically, we aren’t getting married because the Czech Republic doesn’t have marriage equality. Our relationship… Read More ›
Making America What Again? Reflections for the 4th of July by Sara Frykenberg
I find myself asking (again), when the religious right, evangelicals, and Christian fundamentalists hear Trump say, “Make America Great Again,” do they really hear him saying, “Make America Christian Again?” How can the really hear him saying that in light of what this man has actually said and actually done? The answer: because of the same mythical purity that erases the violence, slaughter, and atrocity attached to this “Christian nation’s” founding.
Is This How Patriarchy Began? by Carol P Christ
In my widely read blog and academic essay offering a new definition of patriarchy, I argued that patriarchy is a system of male dominance that arose at the intersection of the control of female sexuality, private property, and war. In… Read More ›
Internal Strife – External Conflict by Oxana Poberejnaia
As Po said in “Kung Fu Panda”: “I’m gonna get myself some Inner Peace… Inner piece of what?” This basically lays out a path of spiritual work for most of us. We aim for peace, yet somehow we feel that… Read More ›
Resisting Shame and Choosing to Live through the Loving Eye by Stephanie N. Arel
This week, I finished reading The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory by Marilyn Frye, a text I had not encountered in my studies of feminism (in literary theory, psychology, philosophy, or theology) until now. In some ways, I… Read More ›
Sirens, Thunderstorms, and Bowling: The Divine on this Mother’s Day by Ivy Helman
Let’s see if the following course of events makes sense. A few Wednesdays ago, I was thinking about possible topics for this post considering it would be Mother’s Day. In the midst of thought, the warning sirens in Prague began…. Read More ›
My Turn: A Femifesto by Marcia Mount Shoop
It’s coming up on a year now that pretty much everything changed in my family’s life. My over twenty years of married life, up until last year around this time, our lives had been built around my husband’s job. John’s… Read More ›
Encountering and Countering Self-Disgust by Stephanie N. Arel
In my last post, Trump’s Misogyny – A Case for the Contempt-Oriented Personality, I wrote about disgust, claiming that media diagnosticians failed to identify disgust- contempt as part of Donald Trump’s psychological profile. At the end of the piece, I… Read More ›
The Burden of Shame by Oxana Poberejnaia
I know a man who says to his daughter: “You should be ashamed of yourself” when he wants to imbue some good habits in her. One example would be not putting her dirty socks in the laundry basket. It might… Read More ›
On Difference by Ivy Helman.
There is no correlation between difference and danger. Yet, differences are regularly considered threatening. In fact, much of Western society’s patriarchal energy is spent categorizing, controlling, managing and fighting difference. Difference is so ingrained within the psyche that most differences… Read More ›
Do You Know Why We Are Marching? by Marcia Mount Shoop
When we got into the car to go, I asked my twelve-year-old daughter, “Do you know why we are marching today?” “To protest Donald Trump?” she replied. I explained that some people may be going for that reason, but that… Read More ›
The Importance of Religion for Eco-Feminism by Ivy Helman
“Why is religion important to ecofeminism?” A student, in the Master’s course I teach at Charles University, asked this as we began the class session dedicated to the topic. Given the overwhelming presence of atheism in the Czech Republic, I… Read More ›
A Letter to Those I’ve Lost by John Erickson
Out of all of these things, the one thing that has kept coming to my mind is G-d. What is he (or she) thinking? I feel like I’m back in one of my Old Testament classes discussing the harsh and cruel G-d that thrust so many horrible things onto their believers. Maybe, the worst part about the election isn’t Donald Trump, but it is the realization that G-d may be dead after all.
